User blog:LeoIvanov/(OOC) Hosting encounters in HereWeStand
So, you have a great idea in your mind about some scenario and wish to host it for other people. Perhaps it involves resolving some mystery, or taking characters on adventure. But now that there are people willing to participate, you have this anxiety that things can easily go out of control, or people won’t enjoy your session, or perhaps just the lack of experience scares you. What do you do? Most of the problems you will face as a Host are actually pretty common and can be categorized and predicted. So fear not, I'll be compiling a short, easy-to-understand list of things you’ll ever need to keep in mind when you host and to keep the experience fun for everyone involved. BASICS The first thing you have to know about hosting an encounter is how our roleplay system works. Open Roleplay Guidelines in your browser and give it a read. Once you get to host, keep that page open and refer to it whenever you feel like. Rolling isn’t used just for combat, and it’s utilized anytime there is a reasonable chance of failure. Picking a lock? Trying to catch a falling object? Spotting something inside a room? Make players roll for it. If the action is easy enough that there is almost guaranteed no chance of failure, just let them do it for free, no need to turn everything into rolling game.* * There are exceptions, of course. You can still have people roll even for mundane things like opening a door. In this case, it's not whether they succeed or fail at it, it's how fast they do it. PLAYER VERSUS HOST Majority, if not all of the time, YOU are the main enemy of the players. By that, I mean you are in control of most of the enemies or adversaries that the heroes come across. You have to remember that as a narrator, you control and change the entire narrative surrounding the adventure. You get to decide how difficult (or easy) some task is, or what it takes to achieve it. *Not satisfied with people simply beating your roll to achieve progress? (They roll higher than Narrator?) Debuff their rolls however you please to make it "fair" in your eyes. *People crave for some hero action and are tired of exposition? You can insert some "low-level" mobs of enemies with low HP (or who die in 1 delivered hit) for people to fight something. *Want to have a “boss” to take down at the end of the run? Have a simple enemy with either high HP or buffed attributes, perhaps contrast it with a simple superpower. Also note that none of the players really NEED to know how much HP somebody has, so you can make enemies die as quickly as in 1 hit, or stubbornly stay up as long as you need them to, provided that they serve a narrative purpose. Of course, not everyone is in favor of enemies that just refuse to die, nor does anyone like cheaters, so if you are absolutely forced to make someone fight endlessly, make sure that it's damn worth it with some epic finale. PLAYER VERSUS PLAYER (PVP) So it gets to the point where one of the players wants to face off another player’s character, and you are caught in the middle to host it. What do you do? First of all, ask each participant to open their character tab. Of course, the roleplay involves the people to be fair, so you’d have to trust the participants that they won’t make their buffs stronger than they really are. Second, if people wish to fight to their deaths, it’s important that the main characters both agree that they have permission to kill each other. If at least one side disagrees with being killed, then neither party can kill the other. Keep the guidelines I’ve linked earlier open for quick tips on how to handle a particular action. Useful for knowing how to handle blocking/avoidance and all the other quirks. Most importantly, and I don’t mean it as an off-hand, closure comment, make sure everyone has fun. It’s easy for people to lose their temper due to the competitive nature of player vs player encounters. Make sure that both parties are satisfied with how the RP went regardless if they lost or won. That isn’t an easy task, but it can be achieved if you take everything written here into consideration. STUFF TO REMEMBER *Too many players and chaos to keep track of their actions? Make the encounter turn-based and ask everyone to roll speed to determine turn order. *People have trouble imagining the area the same way you do? Draw a quick/simple map! *Encounter starting to feel stale/boring? Remember that ‘too much of something’ is never good. **Keep a steady rhythm of your encounter’s pace. E.g: transitioning from calm, to tense, then back to calm. **Make sure that characters have a goal to pursue, so they don’t ask themselves why they are doing this. **Worst case scenario: let people achieve some closure (they find a safe place to rest for the night, etc) and end the encounter. You can always continue with newer ideas later. *Something else happens that you or this guide did not predict? Don’t lose your temper, pause the RP when necessary and think of a solution. We are all humans, and need our moments to think without the pressure from the others. Don’t feel bad for pausing the RP temporarily, it would be much worse if you couldn’t handle it at all and just quit the encounter for good. ---- Hope that this encourages some people to tackle hosting the Roleplay. I’d say this is magnitude more fun than making a case for AO, because this not only involves careful planning, but also requires you to think on the spot and be ready to improvise and tackle things you never thought of initially. Category:Blog posts